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I had friend who theorized that there is a sub atomic particle, called an “Apathon”. It has never been detected because it is too lazy. Apathons are generated by objects like TVs, cell phones, and comfortable couches. They make the affected party not want to move. This seems very similar to a Sweinehund.
Love it!!!
Sounds physically sound, too!
Oh no… I am currently suffering from an Apathon wave, boss. I can’t join the zoom.
Like I said it’s a (role-playing) gaming term, as in rolling dice against one of your character’s statistics. To break down a door you might make a Strength roll (i.e. trying to roll less than your strength figure on a 20-sided dice). To dodge falling rocks you might make a dexterity roll. To resist the villain’s mind-control ray, or in this case just to get out of bed in the morning, you might make a willpower roll. Or you might fail your willpower roll and so stay in bed.
How common the idiom might be outside gaming geeks I couldn’t say, but my friends would certainly understand it! :-)
Ohhhhh, now it makes sense. I used to role play too. I didn’t know you called the whole thing a “roll”. In German, you’d say “Probe”. Or just the feature…
“Mach Entschlossenheit + 10”
“Do a willpower roll + 10”
English is far from consistent here. To quote from a quickly googled D&D rule: “ability modifiers affect almost every Attack roll, ability check, and saving throw”. Three different terms for essentially the same thing in the same sentence! :-)
Fascinating as “Schweinehund” (or equally likely “Schweinhund”) is, or at least used to be when I was growing up, super-common in its insult form in English WW2 films or TV shows e.g. any time you needed a German bad-guy to insult the English hero (or vice versa). These days that’s (fortunately) largely gone away, and I think you’d probably only see it in over-the-top comedy portrayals because it just became so stereotyped an cliche’d – I don’t know if it’s in ‘Allo ‘Allo or Blackadder Goes Forth, but it wouldn’t surprise me in either case because that was the comic effect they were aiming at. Fascinating to find the word has another meaning.
English equivalent to the idiom “innere Schweinehund”? I can’t really think of one offhand. If you said “inner devil” or “weaker self” then I’m sure people would know what you meant (though more usually in the context of something leading you into temptation than laziness/inertia) but neither is really a common usage. More likely I suspect to say “laziness got the better of me” or (for gamers of my generation) “I failed my willpower roll”.
Wow, “I failed my willpower roll”?! I have never heard that and I’m not even sure I’d understand it from context. What’s the idea behind it? Like… what’s the willpower roll?
This is great! I had never heard this term before and I like it a lot – the imagery really fits for that feeling of laziness and inertia that can sometimes beset one’s better intentions.
Discovering that “Schweinehund” is a real word is fab! A German girl at boarding school (in the 80’s) taught us all to say, “Du bist ein Schweinehund” and told us it meant pig-dog and that it was a horrible thing to say in German. We all thought she made it up but “Schweinehund” rolled off the tongue so nicely and it sounded “foreign” while still identifiable (swine + hund) so it’s a word I’ve used profusely since then, albeit more often to swear than to label a foe. When I started learning German I was delighted to find that it, indeed, is a real word. I mean, “Schweinehund” just sums it all up, doesn’t it? Makes us all a little bit more human.
Ha… yeah, our pig-dog is one sign that we’re human :)
Ouch, your first example about studying German hit home. Heute arbeite ich…Oder nicht ;)
I think we would say ‘the little devil inside’. Nice story thanks
Hey, like that word Schweinehunde very much. Thank you for teaching, Emanuel. In Turkey we use the words like the devil inside. In order to overcome it, we ask for angel’s help… ☺
Your comment made me realize an interesting point… the only one who can help you against your inner Schweinehund is yourself. God would just be like “Bro… I got other stuff to do than helping you off the couch” XD
I totally agree..
I remember FitX in Berlin had a memorable Muskelkater vs. Schweinehund campaign a few years ago. It‘s still google-able if anyone wants a far less cugly image. :)
Wow, I totally missed out on that campaign :). I looked it up and this one is my favorite.
I like how the Schweinehund has multiple nipples XD
Subdue? Hell no!
okay, good to know thank you
Some cartoon character, was it Daffy Duck, used to have a white and a black avatar present the cases for and against some evil action. Your inner demon is the black one. Inner demon isn’t quite right to my (Australian) ears, I’d say personal demon or personal devil probably. If I had one ,that is …..
Nur zum Spaß, hier ist Donald Duck (auf Daffy war nicht viel los) in seiner Teufelsperson: https://animalia-life.club/other/devil-donald-duck.html Diese Tropen scheinen die neueste Version von Faustus zu sein, aber es könnte viel älter sein.
In anderen Nachrichten, offensichtlich ist Donald Duck in Deutschland ziemlich beliebt: https://www.german-way.com/donald-duck-in-german/ Deutsch Donald sieht viel mehr Spaß als Disney Donald.
Ein paar Korrekturen:
“In anderen Nachrichten”… ha, das funktioniert auf Deutsch nicht ;). Am besten “ansonsten”, aber nur für die Umgangssprache.
– Sieht viel mehr Spaß….
“looks fun” wäre “sieht nach Spaß aus”. Check mal den Artikel zu “Spaß”.
https://yourdailygerman.com/2015/02/04/spas-its-fun-german/
Vielen Dank, Emanuel.
Das ist großartig, ich werde dieses Wort absolut gebrauchen!
Ja, mach das.
Kleine Korrektur… “absolut” verwendet man nicht wie Englisch “absolutely”. Hier pass “auf jeden Fall” besser.
“benutzen” oder “verwenden” klingt besser. “gebrauchen” klingt ein bisschen gestelzt.